Daylight
by Ierpier
Summary: He's chosen Marian, but nightfall brings him to Regina's bed. OQ oneshot. Rated M.


_Cause when the daylight comes I'll have to go .._

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><p>He comes in the dark of night, revealing no step or sigh as he enters. It's only by the slight pull of her heart, the stirring that flickers deep in her soul that she knows he's there. She feels the bed dip as he sits on it, can't help but see him sitting in that same spot just a few nights ago. Only that night there'd been sunlight bathing them, the black of his tattoo a stark contrast on his light skin. In the absence of daylight she can't see it, can't see what she'd both believed and denied for the better part of her life; he is her soul mate.<p>

There's really nothing to say between them anymore. She'd granted him her heart and he'd fought of beasts and witches to protect it, only to crush it in the afterglow of victory. He had apologized, his heart already so intertwined with her that she could see her own heartbreak in his eyes before she'd felt it herself. She couldn't be mad at him, couldn't even scold him for coming to her bed in the dead of night when he should be with his family. Should be holding his wife and son in his arms instead of longing for things that no longer have a time in his world and should no longer have a place in his heart. There's really nothing to say about anything between them. She doesn't really have to ask why he's here, doesn't blame him for avoiding her in the daylight and seeking her out in it's absence.

She listens to his breathing. A calming sound that she knows so well, an affirmation of a life that she shouldn't feel so connected to anymore. She remembers the soft breathing mixed with gentle snores as his body drifts off to sleep, the way it caught in his throat when he first touched her and the rough edge that it left on his voice when they'd succumbed to the irresistible pull between them. The same pull that was tugging at her heart now insistently and it's hard to resist. So hard. Because night covers them, the dark promising to never tell her secret to the daylight.

It's hours before he touches her. The flashing green light of the alarm clock counting three hours past midnight. She gasps inaudibly at the careful caress of his hand on hers and feels his strong fingers rest there for a while. He's not wearing his wedding band now.

The bed shifts and she knows he's standing up, her heart already mourning the loss of his presence, her skin weeping for something more than a barely-there caress of careful fingers. She fights the urge to ask him to say, because she would never ask him to do so, would never make the already impossible position he's in even more so.

He surprises her when the bed dips again under his weight and he's closer to her now. She feels his breath against her skin, feels the brushes against her body that are accidental, but her starved body easily accepts nonetheless. She allows herself a moment to remember the other time he'd been so close to her, yet so far away. The time in the farmhouse when she hadn't known him but had somehow been desperate for him to kiss her. He had disappointed her, as he did now. A soft kiss to her head was all she got, the soft touch of his lips against her skin.

And it burns. True love's kiss was magical, Snow had told her once. Told her that it lit up your entire soul with a feeling of love and belonging. That's how breaking the curse had felt, but kissing Robin felt nothing like it. Kissing Robin had always been something different, something more desperate and raw, as if fate itself was written in the touch of their lips. Robin's lips draw a tear from her eyes and he can't have seen it, but he brings up his hand to stroke it away.  
>His lips touch her forehead again in another kiss and she feels her soul unravelling beneath his lips, tears streaming down her cheeks until she's sobbing against him. His arms come around her, pulling her close as she feels his body sag in defeat and shame, because he feels it too, feels everything he shouldn't feel. He doesn't apologize, knows that she won't hear or accept them and that he really should apologize to another woman, the woman he sleeps with at night who is not the woman occupying his dreams. The woman who he kisses but whose lips he does not lie awake for at night, aching for their touch. The woman he should love, but doesn't. Not anymore.<p>

She wants to tell him to leave, wants to beg him to stay. Wants to pull him close and push him away. She does neither, speaks no words either; the only sound leaving her the heaving and sobbing against his chest. Robin's hands stroke away the tears on her cheeks, slide up towards her hair in the same way he used to when everything between them had still been allowed. Her heart halts its beat, expectant of the touch it had come to expect. She hears his own breath catching in his throat and she has only a moment to consider that they shouldn't be doing this before his lips crash against hers.

It's nothing like the kisses she's become used to: those kisses were soft, sweet with love and fiery with passion and always, always tender. The kiss between them now is different; a mix of shared frustration, of anger at fate and fairies and tattoos. It's desperate and sorrowful, tinged with regret and it's like her heart beats fully for the first time in near a week in response. The touch of his lips coaxes her battered, damaged heart into slamming forceful against her chest again, persuades her struggling and unwilling breath to heave and her tight lips to stroke and cares his own endlessly.

His hands leave her hair, trailing down her body and he lets out little breathless gasps against her lips when his fingers find the bare skin of her thighs underneath her nightgown. He stills and she wonders if he's going to pull away. Wonders if his honor, his code, can reach through the haze of lust and darkness falling heavy between them. He lets out a heavy breath that's almost a growl, an angry sound at his own weakness, before his lips find hers again and his hands roughly push op her nightgown.

She lets out a sharp gasp when his fingers trail between her legs and only just manages to catch her breath again before his lips press against her insistently. His fingers hook around the rim of the lace and pull it down easily. His mouth leaves hers and he brings it to her neck, sucking at the place where her pulse is seemingly slamming wildly underneath her skin. She lets out a keening gasp at the feeling and brings up one hand to pull him closer to her. She feels him press against her and her other hand quickly finds the evidence of his arousal. He lets out a broken groan when she strokes him softly and suddenly he's gone, but she hears the rusting, the stumbling that is so unlike him.

She lets out a moan as she feels him pressing between her legs. He's waiting for her permission, because for all the vows he's forsaken, he's still a gentleman. She hears his heavy breathing and nods. She would laugh at herself if the whole situation hadn't been so desperate, because the darkness was something that was so natural to her that she forgot it was there in the first place. It's not the darkness she fears, it's the daylight.

Because in the daylight they will have to face how wrong this all is.

And perhaps they won't. She doesn't know which one is more terrifying.

She knows she should stop, should push him away while he's still waiting, asking for permission but she can't. He's pressing against her and her body is screaming, begging, weeping for his touch and she's powerless to resist. So she doesn't. Her arms come up around him, her nails digging into his shoulders as she lets out a breathless sound that could be considered a 'yes' to one with a mind desperate enough to read it as such. It's enough. He pushes forward slowly and she lets out a keening moan at the feeling of him between her legs. She hears his rumbling groan in her ear and feels his hands roaming her body for something to anchor himself to. He pushes into her, his pace breaking down before it has really started in the first place. He's groaning and she's gasping and it won't last long.

She fights the urge to tell him how wonderful it feels and how much her heart aches for him. Even bites back his name because she has no right to speak anything of it to him. This man might be offering her his body, but she still has no right to his heart. It's not his body that she wants, but she'll take whatever she can to pacify the screaming and sobbing of her broken soul.

Suddenly he stills, letting out a broken groan as both his hands grip her hips. She hears his heavy breathing and knows that he's scrunching his eyes closed. One hand leaves her hips and presses between her legs, pressing against the spot there that has her moaning in pleasure. He grunts and grits his teeth as he picks up his pace again. Ramming into her desperately now. Her gasps quickly turn into moans again as she surrenders to the heady pleasure building between her legs and clouding her head. She bows her back and digs her heels into the bed as he continues to pound into her and she's so close, so close that she can almost touch that edge that will make her forget that she shouldn't be doing this at all. His lips find her skin again and he bites down on that spot in her neck that makes her moan and writhe and suddenly she's gone, her body seizing under the pleasure that she shouldn't feel but will not deny herself nonetheless. She's vaguely aware of him pulling away from her, of his low grunts and the warmth of his seed spilling on her stomach seconds later. She's only vaguely aware of the feeling of clumsy hands attempting to wipe the fabric of her nightgown clean and of him collapsing next to her on the bed. She doesn't remember when night carries her off to sleep.

He's long gone when daylight arrives.


End file.
